Joseph E. Bachelder III, a lawyer and compensation negotiator who standardized the so-called golden parachute, which guarantees that top executives of a company are generously rewarded if they are forced out in a takeover, died on Dec. 13 at his home in Princeton, N.J. The cause was cancer, said his brother, Stephan G. Bachelder, who worked with Joseph at his law firm. A golden parachute is a clause in an executive’s employment contract that ensures a gilded landing in the event that he or she is ousted in a merger or an acquisition. Charles Tillinghast Jr., the former Trans World Airlines chief executive, is credited with being the first person to have had such a clause written into his contract, in 1961. But it wasn’t until the 1980s that the provisions proliferated, in part because of Mr. Bachelder’s novel approach to executive contract negotiations.

Source: New York Times December 28, 2020 23:15 UTC